This is the first in a series of diaries discussing the history of punitive civil jurisprudence against GLBT people in Germany, from the Middle Ages to the present. How and why did I get to that from Rev. Worley and back again? Read on to find out.
There's been some discussion lately of the comments by one Pastor Charles Worley.
"I figured a way out--a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But I couldn't get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can't get out. Feed 'em, and- And you know what? In a few years they'll die out."
{cf
this diary by chrislove, for video of Rev. Worley}
It now seems that Rev. Worley and his supporters have gone far beyond simple dislike to the advocacy of
genocide against the GLBTQ community.
Then I read
this article:
"Church members and about 100 visitors from in and outside the area gave Worley a standing ovation when he approached the pulpit. A few members stood up from the pews and spoke out in favor of Worley as officers watched and intervened when one particularly longwinded member spoke.
The atmosphere was a vocal and jubilant one. The sanctuary was mostly full, with the vast majority of the crowd singing and crying out in joy. Many threw their hands up in praising the Lord and in support of the pastor."
I wasn't going to write about this, until last night because of the responses in
this diary, concerning the topic of the lack of
en masse response from the leadership of more liberal, gay-friendly Christian denominations (such as UCC, the PCUSA, the ECUSA, or the ELCA):
"sorry to disappoint you, but the UCC is actually DOING something more important than issuing press releases"
"Just because you haven't seen a press release on every issue and every lunatic doesn't mean {those denominations} aren't working."
"Do you really expect the UCC to condemn every single crackpot bigot preacher in America every single time s/he says something outrageous? The Westboro lunatics alone would require a dedicated person. This is not realistic..."
"Your cause is not the only one"
I had written
a previous diary addressing defense against "Teh Gay™ is icky because my religion said so," and I could go on for decades about Christianist privilege and RWNJ Christianism (as opposed to Christians and Christianity) and how the privilege and -ism are the public face of Christianity. However, IMNSHO, there is something absent from the discussion, and I truly believe that the missing element is the mention of the fact that Christianity is responsible for homophobia in western civilization.
But Holy Thor's Hammer! How can that be discussed in a single diary? Well, it can't. But how to pare it down? The answer lay in the imagery used by Rev. Worley:
" Build a great big large fence...Put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified ..."
Follow me below the fleur de Kos, if you dare:
When Rev. Worley uttered his fateful commentary from his bully pulpit, the feelings of sickness and revulsion that came up in me were strong, to say the least, mostly because of the mental image that is seared into my mind:
Notice the electrified fence in the background.
Yes, that is a photo from a KZ (Konzentrierungslager, or concentration camp) in World War 2. Yes, those prisoners are all wearing a pink triangle, the symbol of KZ prisoners imprisoned for the crime of homosexuality.
Make no mistake -- this is the genocide which Rev. Worley is advocating for GLBT people in the 21st century.
But how did this happen the first time? How did German society devolve to that homophobic point? Besides the obvious answer {having a syphilis-addled, drug addicted megalomaniac dictator for 15 years}, there is actually a long, sordid backstory to it. In this first diary, I'd like to begin with:
Part 1 -- Gay in Medieval Germany
As detailed in the book, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, historian John Boswell proposes the idea that the early Christian churches (specifically the Roman Catholics) had no extreme "issues" with or vendetta against homosexuality or same-sex couples. This attitude appears to have changed around the 12th century CE (the time when the Church co-opted marriage as a sacramental religious rite/fund-raiser), perhaps coincidentally with the advance of Christianity into northern Europe and into lands westward. Or not so coincidentally...
As Christianity spread, local resistance to the church was usually quashed with the usual "God doesn't like that, and you'll go to Hell" rhetoric. But with the co-opting of marriage as a holy ritual, the Church began its campaign of ecclesiastical/spiritual/emotional blackmail through the idea of "sexual sins." Fortunately, in the latter half of the 13th century, repressed closet case theologian Thomas d'Aquino (d/b/a Thomas Aquinas) popularized his peccatum contra naturam dog whistle for "anal sex" meme with the accompanying burn in Hell for all eternity caveat.
Burning of the Sodomites in front of the Walls of Zürich, 1482 ('Spiezer Schilling')
Thus began two lovely traditions: referring to gay sex as "sin against nature" and burning homosexuals at the stake. And just to be thorough, both were codified into secular law, beginning with
Die Peinliche Gerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V (also known as the
Constitutio Criminalis Carolina) of 1532. Signed off into law by Charles V, Holy Roman Emporer, the Constitutio was also the first
Strafgesetzbuch (Penal Code) for the German-speaking world. And while this penal code served for civil law, it also had the added bonus of ridding Christian-controlled areas of "heretics," people of differing religious traditions who, more often than the Christian clergy of the era, practiced celibacy and thus ended up being falsely accused (and usually convicted of) of engaging in
peccatum contra naturam.
"Straff der vnkeusch, so wider die Natur beschicht. cxvj. ITem so eyn mensch mit eynem vihe, mann mit mann, weib mit weib, vnkeusch treiben, die haben auch das leben verwürckt, vnd man soll sie der gemeynen gewonheyt nach mit dem fewer vom leben zum todt richten." -- Die Peinliche Gerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V (Carolina)
Translation: The punishment for fornication that goes against nature. cxvj. When a human commits fornication with a beast, a man with a man, a woman with a woman, they have also forfeited life. And they should be, according to the common custom, banished by fire from life into death." -- Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, Paragraph 116.
As a side note -- the word "faggot" has its etymological root as a word for "bundle of sticks" (it's also the modern word in several languages for "bassoon," which is, basically, an instrument made of two wooden pipes bound together). And what happens when a bundle of sticks is set on fire? It
flames and becomes a "flaming faggot."
At any rate -- this law remained on the books until ....
stay tuned for the next installment:
Part 2 -- Progress
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Bibliography
Boswell, John. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1980.
--- Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. New York: Random House, 1994.
Herbenick, Debby. Good in Bed Guide to Anal Pleasuring. Good in Bed Guides, 2011. 12–13. Electronic.
Witte Jr., John. From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition. Westminster: John Knox Press, 1997. 39–40.